Change Customer on Bill-Only Invoice

Cetec Dev Team / Support,

One pertinent feature that I believe is missing and is crucial for bill-only invoice functionality is the ability to change customer name. I have 12 bill-only invoices on our Cetec instance (invoice # 1500-0 to 1511-0) that all have a customer name with cust ID 218. I need to change all 12 bill-only invoices from cust ID 218 to cust ID 251.

I spoke with Cetec support about this today @Zoë and she informed me there is no way as if you un-invoice it will essentially delete it, given there is no “previous” screen to go into like when you cancel a real Cetec order invoice it takes you back to the order.

Waiting for feedback from Cetec support on this but I think customer name should be editable on bill-only invoices, otherwise in situations like this you are left with no choice but to cancel entirely and re-create which can take a long time.

Hi Tej,

Yes, Zoë is correct! The way to edit the customer name is to back out the bill only invoice and enter the customer on a new bill only invoice.

Best,

Cetec ERP Management.

Cetec Management:

I understand that the current workaround is to cancel and recreate the bill-only invoice. That limitation is precisely why this was submitted under Request a Feature and not Get Help.

As a paying customer, I need to be direct: Canceling and recreating bill-only invoices is not a reasonable or scalable solution in real accounting workflows, especially when:

  • The invoice number already exists and has been referenced internally (which is the case for us)

  • Audit trail and revision history must be preserved

  • Multiple invoices are impacted simultaneously (12 in this instance)

  • The issue is a customer header correction, not a financial or line-item change

Nearly every modern ERP provides controlled edits to header-level invoice fields (customer, bill-to, remit-to) prior to posting or external submission, or at minimum an admin-level “Change Customer” action with full logging.

The purpose of this post was to express the issue and request a product enhancement to support either:

  • Editing the customer on bill-only invoices (with appropriate permissions and logging), or

  • An admin-only reassignment tool that preserves invoice number, amounts, and audit trail

Bill-only invoices lack an upstream object to return to, which makes this limitation more severe than with order-based invoices. As currently designed, a simple customer selection mistake forces full cancellation and re-creation which Zoe explained to me from the start, but this is a process that is neither audit-friendly nor aligned with how accounting teams operate at scale.

I had also suggested a structural improvement: a lightweight order-entry–style screen that feeds into the bill-only invoice module (without work orders or material depletion), while retaining the flexibility of manually entered line items. This would resolve the root limitation rather than relying on destructive workarounds. I know Cetec great traceability for object history and even front-end user docs for traceability reports, I would say this is a major hole in the system.

When we first started using bill-only invoices I had called Cetec asking how to use it, but I was not aware at that time that you can’t change things like this. That would have been an appreciated warning at the least.

I would appreciate confirmation that this request has been logged for future development consideration, even if it cannot be addressed immediately.

Tej